Letters From the Wasteland
by Ishafel
Summary: Things fall apart.
1. The Crucifixion

**_All characters, for what it's worth, are property of Brenda and the WB; this story itself was copyrighted by Ishafel on July 15, 2002.  It is set in more or less the same Camverse as "Silent Night" and is the story of Matt and Sarah's broken marriage._**

Letters From the Wasteland 

_The Crucifixion_

            Sarah Glass Camden touched the side of her husband's face in wonder and he drew away.  However, she knew that it would take time, knew that he had been brought up in a house without physical contact, in a world where so small a gesture as a woman's fingers brushing a man's cheek was cause for punishment.  A man who had taught him to fear and despise her God had raised him without sunlight; she had no doubt that their marriage would not be easy.  There was a spark in Matt, though; something in her recognized something in him.  Both of them had been hurt and alone, once, but would be no longer.  

            It was their wedding night, the night for celebration of the love he and Sarah shared, and Matt Camden was terrified.  Sarah leaned against him, her body so warm it burned him even through all of their clothes.  Tentatively, stiffly, he put one arm around her.  It was his job to see this through; he had begun it, after all, be cause he had something to prove to himself.  He clenched his teeth to keep from shivering as the cab pulled up to the hotel.  He wished with all his heart that the night was over; that what must be done was done already.  Face averted to conceal his expression, he carefully lifted Sarah, a little surprised that someone so small and fragile-seeming should be so heavy.  He felt only disgust at the thought of her, and hoped he could bring himself to readiness.

            Their room was small, almost filled by the two queen-sized beds, and smelling faintly of cigarette smoke.  To Sarah it was the most beautiful place in the world, until she looked up and saw Matt's face.  There were lines of strain around his mouth, and his eyes looked haunted.  "What is it?" she breathed, and he flinched as if she had screamed at him.  For the first time, she began to be troubled.  She had always believed that there were no wounds that love could not heal; yet Matt's wounds must be deep indeed, to leave such scars.  Backing away to allow him space, she took off her jacket and threw it on a chair, and began to unbraid her hair.  After a moment, Matt seemed to relax, and she sighed in relief.  She had known this would not be easy but she had not dreamed it would be so difficult from the very start.  When she was sure he was not going to run, she said, a little shyly, "I'm going to go and change."

            When Sarah had closed the bathroom door, Matt stripped off his jacket and sat on the bed, trying to center himself.  Slowly he unbuttoned his shirt, took off his shoes, and leaned back against the headboard of the bed.  The walls were a drab shade of beige and the picture on the opposite wall had been stuck on crookedly.  Funny, but he had always imagined motels were much more glamorous, and at the same time far dirtier.  The room was as ordinary and plain as any in his own home.  Sarah, too seemed far more ordinary, clad as she was only in a plain white shirt that hung almost to her knees, long dark hair loose down her back.  If Matt had not known she was experienced he might have thought her a virgin sacrifice.  The sacrifice, at least, was true enough; he wondered if he could manage to make love to her without touching her.

            Yet when she moved to sit beside him on the bed, her shirt pulled tight over her breasts for an instant and he felt his body respond.  He could not summon excitement, not quite, but eagerness, at least, he was capable of.  Then Sarah pressed her lips to the hollow of his shoulder and he leaned away and ended by falling back flat on the half-unmade bed.  "I love you, Matt," she said softly, looming over him, her face closing in on his, and Matt panicked.

            His body of its own accord rolled clear of her and he was on his feet.  "Don't," he began, ragged and half sobbing.  "Don't come near me.  I can't stand it when you touch me."  Sarah reached for him as if by reflex and for a moment he thought she had not heard him.  Part of him wanted her still, but he dragged himself under control.  It was unfair to use her so; she was his wife and a decent woman and he could not ask her to play the whore, to lay with him knowing there was no future in it, that he used her only to exorcise his father's ghost.  He had thought he might reach freedom in her arms but deep down he knew that his scars would never cease to bleed, that Sarah would never be more than a nurse to him.

            "Matt, what is it?"  Sarah asked him, her voice trembling with fear and the beginnings of hurt.  "I thought you wanted this, wanted for us to be together?"  She was an innocent, Sarah; a child playing at being a woman—a girl who had been touched but never damaged.  He had married her because of what she was, because she was a Jew and therefore a heretic; their marriage, should it fail—as he now knew it must—could be dissolved in a heartbeat, leaving him sinless as before.  He hated what necessity had made him do, but he had had to know, had hoped marrying would bring him peace.  

            Sarah's fingers closed on his wrist with force enough to bruise, and Matt wondered what his father would say if he saw.  But then again, Eric might think he had gotten what he deserved, alone as he was in a motel room with a half-naked woman not of his faith, unable even to consummate the mistake he had made.  He was impotent, and a fool, and weak besides.  And Eric, who himself was little better, despised weakness most of all in others.  His father would judge Matt and discard him; his God would hardly be more kind.

            "I can't be with you," he told Sarah dully.  "I've made a terrible mistake.  I can't be with anyone, ever again.  I don't deserve to be happy, and I'm sorry for the position I've put you in."

            "Matt, wait," Sarah cried, but he was gathering his things already, moving toward the bathroom.  He slammed the door behind himself and locked it.  He put up a hand to touch the face in the mirror and was shocked when it cracked under his palm.  But seven years' bad luck or seven decades worth made little difference to him now.  What were seven years of missed chances when he could not bear to be touched?  A hand on his shoulder, a woman's kiss, a friendly hug…the future stretched before him empty as his heart, broken as his marriage vows.  He could not love Sarah, but he could honor her—especially if honoring her meant walking away.  His father had taught him that sometimes the bravest thing a man could do was run.

            In the shattered mirror a thousand Matts made faces at the thought of Eric, lips pursed, speaking his words of wisdom from the pulpit.  It was a shame that a man so holy could have committed such a great sin.  Outside, Sarah was talking to him, her voice carefully soft and calm.  "Matt, open the door, please.  Surely we can talk about this?"

            "There's nothing to talk about," he answered her; so softly he knew she couldn't hear.  

            "Open it," Sarah snapped, and, reluctantly, Matt did.  He always gave in.  He always had.  Which was, after all, why he was here.  Sarah dragged him to the bed, and pushed him down on it.  There was nothing fragile about her now.  She had wrapped her coat over her nightdress and pulled her hair up in an untidy bun.  Her face, bare of makeup as it was, echoed her mother's in bone structure, but there was something far stronger in her.

            Looming over him, Sarah demanded, "What is wrong with you, Matthew?  Has someone hurt you?"

            Matt shook his head no.  No one has hurt me.  There is nothing wrong.  I am what I am and nothing can change that.  I am as innocent as driven snow and I intend to remain that way.  "No," he answered reluctantly.  "It's nothing like that."  But even to him the words rang hollow.

            "Tell me the truth, Matt," she said with steel in her voice that made him think of his mother.  There were some truths not worth telling.  

            "I made a mistake, is all," he answered.  "I should never have married you."  Sarah was crying now, the easy, unashamed tears of one who has nothing to hide.  She had always gotten what she wanted:  top grades, an Ivy League college, a scholarship to medical school she didn't need, and horses and jewels and beautiful clothes when his own sisters wore hand-me-downs from the parish.  For a moment he hated her, except she wasn't worth the effort.

            He had come all the way to New York with her, as if she were a talisman with the power to set him free.  He had believed that one night with her would erase everything, and put that night off as long as he could.  "You don't understand what is I've done."  Sarah's hand clamped down on his.  "It's too late, Sarah, I have to go."  And when Sarah clung to him still:  "Christ, Sarah, let it go.  I'm going home.  I should never have come."

That was the crux of it, after all; he should never have come.  They had been in the city three months; three months of sleeping side by side like brother and sister.  And they had been married two months before that, and still he had not consummated the marriage.  Five months of living chaste as children because they could not afford to risk Sarah getting pregnant.  And now they had decided to gamble on it, or she had decided, but he could not bring himself to do it.  Once he slept with Sarah he would be bound to her, bound to New York.  Bound to stay here, away from the family he hated and despised and missed with all his heart.  Bound to their cheap apartment, the constant calls from the father who had cut Sarah off without a penny and the constant silence from his own family.  This was his honeymoon in a seedy hotel three stops away.  This was his life, this and dissecting fetal pigs.  He had come to despise Sarah and, more so, himself.  It was time to go home.

He shook her hand off.  "I'm leaving."  This time, she made no move to stop him.


	2. The Way of the Gun

**_All characters, for what it's worth, are property of Brenda and the WB; this story itself was copyrighted by Ishafel on July 19, 2002.  It is set in more or less the same Camverse as "Silent Night" and is Eric's story.  I apologize to anyone who might be offended by the language, but certain words have more power than others, and—to me, anyway—seemed essential to the story._**

****

Letters from the Wasteland The Way of the Gun 

1974, Spring

            "Squeeze the trigger, dammit!"  His father was angry now, and he was beginning to be afraid that everything was not going to be all right after all.  He sighted carefully down the barrel of the gun once more, but he couldn't do it.  He must have made some sound, though, must have breathed too loudly.  Perhaps they only sensed his fear.  But they were bounding away instantly, and he put the safety on, lowered the gun.  The Colonel spat over the side of the deer stand.  "Faggot," he mouthed.  "Why the hell didn't you shoot?  I hope some day you have a faggot son, so you know how it feels."  The blow took him by surprise, and his eyes filled with tears.

            "Never," he mumbled.  He could feel his cheek swelling, despite the cold.  "I'll never hit a son of mine."  But the Colonel had turned away in disgust, and Eric's words passed unnoticed.  Only God was there to hear his promise, and God never told tales.  

            "Never," he said, again, but he was thinking of Lucy's stricken face, the handprint on her cheekbone.  He could not have stopped Annie if he'd tried, but still it broke his heart.  "Never again."  But his voice lacked conviction.  All his years of fighting for independence, years in college, the seminary, the Peace Corps, the ministry—come to nothing, because nothing had changed.  He could fix everyone's family but his own.  He finished his drink, whiskey he'd been given at Christmas by one of his parishioners.  Annie despised drunks, but what was one more weakness from the husband who'd failed her again.  

            His mother would never have spoken to his father so, and Eric knew that Annie's show of strength was merely her attempt to compensate for him.  She sensed his fear as that long ago buck had, and she tried to fill his place.  The Colonel would have said she was twice the man he ever could have been.  The Colonel would have been right—Eric was incapable of summoning the decision his father and wife managed—his greatest difficulty was that he could see every side to every story, and so could not commit to one view.  But in the past, God had always guided him to the right path in the end, and he had never had reason to question Annie before.  Perhaps his father had been right all along, and violence was as good an answer as any.  He could almost feel the smooth polished wood of the rifle in his hand, the cool metal against his jaw.  He set his glass down with a hand that suddenly shook.

            "Faggot," he told it, a little sadly, and looked up to find Robbie staring at him.  "Robbie.   I'm sorry, I was thinking of something else."

            "Of course," Robbie answered, polite as always, but there was a trace of fear in his expression.  It was always there, now, whenever he was alone with Eric.  Sometimes Eric wondered if he had done something to make Robbie afraid, but there was so much he could not remember, lately.  After a moment, he dismissed the thought all together.  

"What is it, Robbie?" he asked tiredly.  

Robbie sighed.  "The truth is, Reverend, we need money to buy the kids' clothes and pay the bills.  Matt's and my salaries together barely cover groceries, gas, and Annie's prescriptions.  We just can't manage it."

"Of course you can't, Robbie.  And there's no reason why you should have to—that's my job," Eric told him.  "Don't worry.  In future it will all be taken care of."  But he had already forgotten Robbie's words, Robbie's very presence.  Money, he was thinking.  Money would buy a gun.  Not a hunting rifle like the one he'd had as a boy, but a smaller, heavier weapon, one meant for bigger game.  A single bullet in his father's head would not change the past, but it might change the future for all of them.  When he looked up to tell Robbie about this neat, elegant solution, Robbie was gone, the glass empty.  With a start he realized that hours had gone by.  The bottle in his bottom drawer was empty as well.  He would have to buy another one.  More money.

Standing up again gave him a sudden rush of energy.  He remembered little of the drive to the liquor store on the edge of town.  Suddenly he found himself in the parking lot, sitting in the car, a new bottle, wrapped in a brown bag, between his thighs.  A big van pulled up behind him, and the man in the driver's seat screamed, "Faggot!"

Shocked, Eric glanced around.  In truth, he wondered what the other man knew.  The sign in front of him caught his eye, and he realized he had parked straddling the two handicapped spaces.  He waved apologetically to the van driver and backed carefully out.  His hands were trembling so much he had difficulty breaking the seal on the whiskey.  On the road again, he glanced at the clock on the dashboard, and realized, shocked, that it was nearly time for dinner.  He'd have to hide the bottle in the garage apartment until tomorrow.  In his head, he was already planning out his sermon for Sunday, the day after Christmas—the perfect time for a talk about the power of words, of names, to hurt.  The power of a name his father had called him once to shake him still.  And some words, of course, were worse than others.  Because they were true, a small part of his mind asserted, or why else would Robbie fear him so.  Firmly he squashed it.  

He tripped on the steps to the garage apartment, but he made it up.  Carefully he tapped his way along the wall until he found the hollow portion.  He had expected Annie's boards to be easy to pry away; he had not expected that many of the nails would be missing.  Pulling back the sheet of plywood, he found, nested in the pink insulation, a gun.  He raised it, sighted down the barrel.  The weight in his hand was immense, as if he held a cannon.  It was a thousand times what he could have imagined.  I could kill them all, he thought.  God has brought me to this for a reason.  Slowly he lowered the gun, knowing he was wrong.  But he did not put it back.

At dinner, he looked at his family, really looked at them, for the first time in a long time.  Annie, too thin, clad still in her bathrobe; Mary, remarkable as always for her absence; Matt, silent and thoughtful, and Robbie, who would not meet his eyes; Lucy, face pale, mouth swollen, and nails bitten; sullen Simon, become a man in his father's absence; Ruthie, cold and hard as ice.  Sam and David, silent and well behaved as ever in his presence.  He had destroyed them as surely as the Colonel had done him; there was an air of desperation about them now he remembered from refugees in Africa.  He had only himself to blame, and so he said only, "Let us pray," and bowed his head.

God was his strength, his shepherd, and his guide in times of need.  Now when he needed God most of all, there was no answer.  He was free to make his own choices, and that frightened him more than bondage ever had.  All his life the Colonel or God or Annie had directed him, but now God and the Colonel were far away and Annie was dying.  The gun in the glove compartment must be his only counsel now, and he had only one road left to travel.  He raised his head and the others said, "Amen," with all the passion of a chorus of robots, while he looked at each of them for the last time.


End file.
